Dango Unchained
I’m free! But all I’m going to do is walk and eat. Really, that’s this entire post.
Quarantine is over! The chains have been broken. and I am once again free to roam the Earth like a bipedal carbohydrate-seeking automaton. Of major note is the passing of Christmas and and the New Year, which I experienced by myself. So please enjoy one of my favorite depressing lonely winter songs, Neck Deep’s December.
That’s right, featuring the second saddest boi of all time (Ben Gibbard #1) Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional. There’s also a much pop-punkier version with Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus that’s quite good.
Where to begin? It’s been a little bit since the last post. I guess we can start with food because that’s what everyone tells me they like hearing about. Firstly, I contacted Uber and got myself unbanned. Mazel tov.
Dominos
One of the later meals I had while in quarantine was a Dominos pizza. Am I lame? Perhaps. But Dominos here is changing the game, and I’m gonna tell you why. This pizza may not look impressive at first glance, but please read onward.
Here are the four flavors as described by the website are (translated by Deepl). I’m honestly not sure which is allegedly turkey, because one of these definitely looks like mega fatty bacon to me.
Roast chicken and Hokkaido Camembert
Plump shrimp and fluffy lobster sauce
Smoked turkey and five kinds of mellow cheese sauce
Open-fire grilled steak with garlic
Let’s start off with the most obvious. You can order a pizza in quadrants. Perfect for picky groups or just indecisive pigs like me. Honestly, should be a global phenomenon. Now if you think this pizza doesn’t look good, I can respect that. But it tasted delicious. It didn’t have the that nice “almost-burnt, slightly chewy cheese” that can be really good, but the cheese was instead amazingly creamy. Is that a common part of the Japanese dairy palate? I have no idea. But the crust was also good, even without the garlic seasoning that US Dominos puts on. Further, there’s more than meets the eye to this pizza. You’ve heard of stuffed crust. So have the Japanese. And true to form, if you are good at something, there is an Asian out there who will take it to the next level.
“Ultra Chris Peak Last” is a humorous failure of machine translation. The original text consists entirely of English loanwords and says “Ultra Crispy Crust”. Phonetically written, it is “URUTORA KURISUPII KURASUTO”. However, Japanese just doesn’t use spaces between words, so machines (and humans) have to guess where words start and end. Also, naturally L<->R.
That’s right, there are eight different crust options. But what are these crust options like, you might ask? Well when you choose a crust, the website shows you a cross section. It only shows you one at a time, so I have painstakingly taken seven screenshots and stitched them together for your viewing pleasure since I love you so much (there are only seven because “Cheese Burst” and “Cheddar Cheese Burst” have the same picture). If you look at the bottom two, you’ll notice that you can turn your entire pizza into a quesadilla form factor. Twice. The Japanese truly entered 2021 long before the West did. I’m not done writing about Dominos though. Behold:
I hope the caption is as funny in Japanese as it is in English.
That’s right, for the cool cool price of approximately 45 American dollars you can order the ULTRA CHEESE™ pizza with one entire kilogram of cheese. Don’t let your dreams be dreams. I was under the impression that many Japanese people are lactose intolerant, but either that’s less common than I thought, or they just don’t care. My non-ultra pizza was actually a similar price, but I found out after the fact from a friend that 1) coupons are easy to come by if you are literate (I am not) and 2) pizzas are half price if you get takeout instead of get delivery. Considering that there is no “extra” delivery fee or driver tipping, it makes sense. Lesson learned for the future.
The last week or so (since my release) has been kind of a blur of walk-eat-walk-eat so there’s not going to be a solid chronology here. Just enjoy the photos and anecdotes, and know that I must have surprised the hell out of my FitBit after being inactive for so long and then smashing out steps like mad. Here is another food item from classic curry chain CoCo Ichibanya. I ordered their Level 5 spice (since the Uber Eats app had it tagged as “recommended”). I personally recommend a number lower than that.
The compartment in the top center contains seasoned/pickled daikon, I think.
I ordered the katsu curry and added karaage to the order because it was cheap and it turned it into two meals instead of one. #efficiency. It probably would have been better fresh from the kitchen so the fried items stayed crispier, but it’s still better than conbini food.
Here’s another quick-food classic, as seen on my previous blog:
Ichiran isn’t the most amazing ramen, but it is 1) fast 2) consistent and 3) antisocial. Here’s how it works:
There is a ticket vending machine outside the restaurant, where you place your order. Human interface not required. In addition to ordering soup I ordered nori on the side.
Take your vended tickets and walk inside. The restaurant is essentially two long “bars” with the kitchen access in the middle between them.
Sit on a stool, with little cubicle walls on either side (anti-social feature #2)
Fill out your soup preferences on a little sheet. You have options regarding things like the richness of the broth, the texture of the noodles, the spice level, and the garlic level.
Press the red button saying you’re ready and put your ticket/preferences next to it
Someone slightly raises a wooden barrier between you and the kitchen area and takes your ticket. You only see hands (anti-social feature #3).
The magic hands return with soup!
Each little cubicle comes stocked with cups and individual water taps, so you can top yourself off as you need. If you want to order more noodles, you can just press the button again and fill out a noodle refill sheet. This requires planning your broth consumption ahead, because they only bring noodles. Ichiran also exists in NYC, so next time you’re there you can give it a try!
Immature content break!
Just look at these.
I think we can safely assume that this is just a language gap issue. Perhaps it was “The Grands” then they wanted to spice it up with a Z? Looks like they could use a tip from a business consultant on naming things.
Work starts at noon. Nice.
Although most business close their doors for the New Year, there are always people ready to fulfill the needs of the people. “Needs” means stomachs. I was lucky enough that the New Year’s food stalls were open for several days, so I actually made a few passes over the holiday. Here are my finds:
I originally posted the dango photo with the hashtag “dango sankyoudai”, you can enjoy the origin of that here. it's a dango tango
Unfortunately, New Years Eve/Day in Japan is largely a family affair compared to the US where everyone gets l i t and parties. On NYE, a there is a special kind of soba that is often eaten. Then, there are some special foods for the first days of the year as well (called osechi). I had neither of these. But a few days after the year broke I did partake in one tradition, hatsumōde at Meiji-Jingu Shrine, right around the corner from the street food. When visiting the shrine, people buy good luck amulets for the year (after returning the one from the year before), get fortunes, and make a wish at the shrine. I made a wish, we'll see how it goes!
I’m going to finish off with just a nice assortment of photos I’ve taken. All of these are #nofilter, the sky just looks that good.
